The message is clear to GEIL. Back up your “Evidence”, “Technical witness” and “Expert witness” and issue proceedings against an alleged infringer who denies your claim.

The truth is no legal outfit or copyright holder has done this, and it will very likely never happen.

There is nothing more to say other than GEIL are never going to take an alleged infringer to Court, and test their claim against an alleged infringer who is allowed to mount a defence and all GEIL have done is operate an alternate money making scheme for failing producers.

Simon James Honey (born 23 May 1956 in Sittingbourne, Kent), better known as Ben Dover

Honey joined The Ian Mitchell Band (formed by Mitchell who had previously joined Bay City Rollers on bass for seven months in 1976) in May 1979, who whilst not finding success in the UK or US, released three studio albums and regularly toured across Europe and Japan”.

So by 1979, that would make Simon Honey about 23 years of age when he joined “The Ian Mitchell Band”. Hmmmm……

I would like to bring to your attention an interview of Simon Honey which he gave to Strictly Broadband website, which although no longer exists, it can been seen in an archive here.

I’m sure you had plenty of girls to give a good seeing to as well, though. I certainly did, especially in Japan, where our bands were really big. I shagged a 13 year old on the bullet train once, and I was only about 14 at the time myself.

“only about 14 at the time myself”?????? More like 24 years of age, and this would have been an illegal and criminal act.

Obviously these are the words of Simon Honey and it could be true or a bit of bare faced bragging.

We have seen before, mentioned in a previous post on this blog, more bragging from Julian Becker:

I never thought of myself as a pornographer, but I started looking at content and text messaging. I had actresses outside football stadiums giving out cards. They acted really unprofessional, but that was deliberate: ‘My name’s Ella, I’ve just arrived in the UK and I’m looking for new friends’. They would give the cards to these guys, who would then give them a call, but it would actually go to some bureau. It was normally a bunch of gay guys down in Brighton who played the roles. I always found that quite amusing, and it did OK.

The activities of these low lives duly came to the attention of the local Plod. Plod investigated, but when it became clear that it was a Muslim gang, the shutters came down, e-mails were deleted, diversity courses were attended, and finally the powers that be gave the order to turn a blind eye and let the scumbags carry on with their revolting activities. Well, better a few underage white girls being abused , gang raped and forced on to drugs than another bomb on the underground eh?

Apparently the reason these women are forced to dress up in what looks like a cheap Darth Vader fancy dress costume is so that other men can’t see the beauty of the woman lurking underneath, and as a result be consumed with a lust that they will be unable to control!

I think we all know from their own words what Mr Julian Becker and Mr Simon Honey are.

Please feel free to comment.

I will now provide a piece of true evidence that hasn’t come from these two individuals but instead from the Police. In this document, you will see a transcript of an interview with Simon Honey taken from the Metropolitan Police in the early eighties when Videx Ltd was raided:

Mr Honey seemed to have a repetitive problem providing the response “No comment”.

Question: “Do you work for Videx Ltd?”; Answer: “I don’t wish to make any comment.”

Oh the irony! Are O2 victims allowed the same luxury of providing the same response to GEILs LoCs? I think not!

One of the questions put to Mr Honey in the Police statement:

I received a film ‘The Videx Video Show’ which shows you in it engaged in sexual practices, is it in fact you in that film?

Hmmm………..Mr Honeys last statement:

I would just like to say that I can see nothing at all offensive about the sequence included in the Videx Video Show filmed at Eureka Sun Club. It is merely a documentary type sequence showing families indulging in a totally innocent pass time ie walking around with no clothes on.

The Videx Video Show was described in the Police statement as a film which shows Mr Honey “engaged in sexual practices” also showing “families indulging in a totally innocent pass time ie walking around with no clothes on”. Mr Honey replies with “I would just like to say that I can see nothing at all offensive about the sequence included in the Videx Video Show”.

Which seems to be described in the statement as a pornography film showing adult sexual content and also showing a sequence which shows naked families at the “Eureka Sun Club”.

Was this video an adult content film also showing inappropriate footage of naked children? Look at another part of the Police statement:

Mr Honey, I’am satisfied with the documents in Police possession together with the observation on the premises at <-snip-> that you have a responsibility in the running of Videx Ltd and in addition having viewed the ‘Videx Video Show’ that you are aware of the contents of that video and as such you will be charged with the offences under the Obscene Publications Act and under the Protection of Children Act and again I remind you of the caution, that is formally telling you of what you are going to be charged with.

It is at this point where I say “No comment”.

Why?

This blog is all about proof and truth, but within the realms of speculative invoicing. The protagonists have been proven on this blog time and time again to make unjust claims, unjust demands, providing inadequate evidence and above all making complete lies about promising to issue Court proceedings against those who deny their claim.

What is Mr Simon Honey? No comment.

ACS:BORE UPDATE

Has anyone formed an opinion of Lindsay Honey?

It could be difficult considering he has grown old now, and maybe more evidence is required to form an honest opinion.

We have a new series commissioned by TVX, and we’re currently looking for suitable girls to cast. The most important aspect is the girls must all look young [18] as that is the theme of the series.

Does the adult industry make it OK to let a prominent legend performer who self professed he “shagged a 13 year old” at 24 years of age then promote that person at 58 years of age to say he “needs new girls” who “must all look young“? A 58 year old who “needs new girls” to look like 18 year olds!

A father or mother might want to make a comment if their daughter was involved.

Well, it is now over twelve months since the disclosure from O2 of their subscriber private details they provided to Golden Eye International (“GEIL”) following the Norwich Pharmacal Order (“NPO”) Court judgement and GEILs successful appeal.

This Anniversary now requires GEIL to perform their Court order obligation to destroy the private details of the O2 subscribers they have not sent a begging letter to (See below).

Within twelve months of the date of disclosure, the Applicants shall destroy all copies of any data which has not been used to either send a letter or claim or issue legal proceedings for infringement of copyright on the terms set out in this Order and shall provide written confirmation to the Respondent that such destruction has taken place.”

The interesting part of the above paragraph is “issue legal proceedings”. This would seem an assumption that a High Court Judge has a belief that GEIL will actually bring proceedings against alleged infringers and I believe it was crucial for the ruling of disclosure. This can be seen further from the following paragraph of the Order:

The Applicants are granted permission (to the extent that it is necessary) to use the information provided to it pursuant to the Order in paragraph 1 herein for the purposes of bringing separate proceedings for copyright infringement against those said persons (or any of them), and for the purposes of any pre-action correspondence relating thereto.

The part “for the purposes of bringing separate proceedings for copyright infringement against those said persons” is foremost and prominent in the Order, whilst “pre-action correspondence” is “relating thereto”.

In the event that that this matter cannot be resolved, it may become necessary for GEIL and BDP to bring a claim against you for copyright infringement. This claim would be brought in the civil court, where liability is determined on the balance of probabilities.

Our initial letters in summary gave details of the infringements the software had detected, giving specific dates and times in addition to film titles. The letters then gave the recipient our legal position and encouraged them to contact us so that we could make an informed judgement on whether we would be pursuing the case through the courts or ceasing action. It also gave the recipient the option to admit the offence, financially settle the matter as well as committing to not re commit the offence.

So “we could make an informed judgement on whether we would be pursuing the case through the courts or ceasing action” again is foremost and prominent.

The truth is GEIL have conducted a campaign of threatening Court action against alleged infringers unless GEILs settlement figure has been paid.

The truth is GEIL have not issued proceedings against any alleged infringer who denied their claim.

In order to secure a “default judgement” , GEIL would need to issue proceedings against an alleged infringer to the Courts and the alleged infringer fails to file an acknowledgement or fails to provide a defence to proceedings.

This link shows the outcome of the case, and GEIL using the Money Claim Online route was a clear breach of CPR rules. In the link, HHJ Birss QC words were summed up as:

He was also concerned about the breach of the Civil Procedure Rules when issuing the claims. Copyright and IP cases can only be heard in certain courts and the money claims the online process used by Golden Eye is not set up for IP cases.

The truth is GEIL have never issued proceedings against an alleged infringer who has contested their claim.

So why would GEIL use the Money Claim Online route? Speculation is they tried this route against those who did not reply to their Letter Of Claim (“LoC”). It was unfortunate for GEIL that these individuals actually took action against their claim and did mount a defence.

The truth is that GEIL have absolutely no interest in issuing proceeding against anyone who denied their claim. Going after default judgements against those who did not reply to their LoC is their “modus operandi”.

The truth is this is NOT the correct actions from an organisation who wishes to protect their copyright.

The message is clear to GEIL. Back up your “Evidence”, “Technical witness” and “Expert witness” and issue proceedings against an alleged infringer who denies your claim.

The truth is no legal outfit or copyright holder has done this, and it will very likely never happen.

Golden Eye International Limited (“GEIL”) has finally sent out their letters of claim (“LoC”) for the other producers involved in GEILs “Anti-Piracy” campaign.

What has been considered controversial by the High Court Judge Justice Arnold at GEILs Norwich Pharmacal (“NPO”) Order application, GEIL were given the green light in their appeal to Justice Arnolds original decision to act on behalf of the other producers.

For those who have recently received your first LoC, these links will give you an idea of what to expect:

Further bad news is Julian Becker, Director of GEIL and manager to the other GEIL Director Simon Honey (a.k.a. Ben Dover), has gloated on forums of his exploits from his visits to US adult trade shows:

Through my work in anti piracy, I am now representing a number of studio’s in the USA.

If any female models are interested in 2-3 weeks of work probably in LA, please email me direct for further details.

Regards

Julian
julian@ben-dover.biz

So what can you make of that? What do you call someone who arranges a certain type of work for female models and get paid? And what has that got to do with anti-piracy? Is that implying that such work isn’t for selling but to be made available for people to download, and then you send a settlement letter? Is that what you call anti-piracy?

2.1 Licensor is the owner of the Copyright and/or related ancillary rights in the Works under international copyright law.

2.2 Licensor grants Licensee the exclusive right to act for it in relation to any alleged breaches of copyright arising out of ‘peer to peer’ copying of material across the Internet. The parties agree that additional movies can be added to Schedule 1 with a written supplemental Agreement.

2.3 In case of any infringement of suspected or past infringement by any third party of copyright subsisting in the Works:

(a) the Licensee shall, in its sole discretion, decide what action if any to take; and

(b) the Licensee shall have sole control over, and conduct of, all claims and proceedings;

(c) the Licensee may require the Licensor to lend its name to such proceedings and provide reasonable assistance, subject to the Licensee giving the Licensor an indemnity in respect of all costs damages and expenses that it may incur including an award of costs against it, directly resulting from Licensor’s involvement in such proceedings.

This is very much technical, and can be confusing to those who have been accused by GEIL. I will try to explain to the best of my understanding by using an analogy of prostitution. In no way am I trying to associate what GEIL are doing as being prostitution. It is simply a means to explain.

So effectively the “Licensor” (Prostitute) gives the “Licensee” (Pimp) (“Producer” gives “GEIL”) the right to conduct a campaign of speculative invoicing.

We all know how speculative invoicing works, so how can such an agreement work between the “Licensor” (Prostitute) and “Licensee” (Pimp)? Again from GEILs NPO:

In consideration of the rights hereby granted under this Agreement, the Licensee agrees to pay to the Licensor 25% of any Revenue. These monies shall be payable by the Licensee in a manner and at intervals agreed between the parties

In the case of the agreements with Orchid MG Ltd, Kudeta BVBA and RP Films Ltd, the figure specified in clause 2.5 is 27.5%, 37.5% and 27.5% respectively, rather than 25%.

Hmmm…..the general agreement is 25%, but three producers want more! Why?

Having given the prostitute / pimp analogy, let’s start with Justice Arnolds opinion from the NPO:

I consider that would be tantamount to the court sanctioning the sale of the Intended Defendants’ privacy and data protection rights to the highest bidder

So some producers needs are more important than the others (So it seems).

So who are these producers? Some detail is more obtainable than others which doesn’t really fit well with the idea that their revenue is decimated through torrent piracy.

One of the producers who I will not name made the following quote about GEIL:

If someone gives me a call and says they will fight my corner free of charge, all you have to do is sign up and we’ll do the rest. I signed up!

the Licensee may require the Licensor to lend its name to such proceedings and provide reasonable assistance, subject to the Licensee giving the Licensor an indemnity in respect of all costs damages and expenses that it may incur including an award of costs against it, directly resulting from Licensor’s involvement in such proceedings

So GEIL give the producer an indemnity (Or compensation) if things don’t go well in Court. But what happens if GEIL go bankrupt?

Anyway, back to the producers.

The following is an introduction to the various producers with some detail as best as I could find. I do have much more information on the companies and people involved, but such is the nature of the material and media I have tried to make it as decent as possible. It is unfortunate though that some of the links do contain adult content, and it is also possible again from the people involved that the material could change. Please be aware of such possibilities when clicking on any link.

Having concluded that the Service is an ODPS, ATVOD has determined that a contravention of section 368BA (Requirement to notify an ODPS) and section 368D(3)(za) (Requirement to pay a fee) has occurred because on the basis of the information available (a) the Service is an ODPS; (b) Joybear Pictures is the provider of the service; (c) Joybear Pictures withdrew its previous notifcation of the service; and (d) Joybear Pictures has not paid the regulatory fee for the year ending 31 March 2013, as required by ATVOD under section 368NA of the Act.

So effectively Joybear should have paid a fee to operate an On Demand Programme Service (ODPS) and JoyBear tried to weed out of it by claiming that the domain had transferred to another company outside the UK.

Interesting though that the above domains are registered to a Joe Black and this link has the address of Sweetmeats above and Joe Black is a Director of a company called Blackhart Media Ltd, which this link shows a title that Sweetmeats are the production company.

The timeline for Mr Newcombe and Mr Newcombe above as Directors is strange. Michael Lister Newcombe resigned as Director soon after GEILs successful NPO appeal in Court, then Michael Newcombe became Company Secretary between 16/01/2013 and 03/02/2013.

Now that was an introduction to the other producers. We have been introduced to the main characters behind GEIL before.

As Julian Becker and Simon Honey are in a certain business that requires a certain character persona, it may be that they could be involved in certain dealings. This persona may appeal to their audience and consumers, but if something is wrong then it is wrong.

Then what happened was a company he was working for got busted. This was in the days when making porn was illegal. In fact porn was only made legal in 93 or 94 in the UK. Before then companies would distribute secretly through private mailing lists. Some of the addresses on the mailing lists were used by undercover CID officers and they were all arrested. It was so funny because when the police raided it – Lindsay was still young, only like 19 or 20 – they asked him who he was and what was he doing there. He said ‘Oh I’m just the office boy’ and they said ‘OK let him go’, which was ridiculous because had they bothered to watch the films they’d realize that he was the guy starring in all of them! And he got away with it and everyone else went to prison.

“so funny” eh? and “everyone else went to prison” eh?

Becker goes on to recall:

I never thought of myself as a pornographer, but I started looking at content and text messaging. I had actresses outside football stadiums giving out cards. They acted really unprofessional, but that was deliberate: ‘My name’s Ella, I’ve just arrived in the UK and I’m looking for new friends’. They would give the cards to these guys, who would then give them a call, but it would actually go to some bureau. It was normally a bunch of gay guys down in Brighton who played the roles. I always found that quite amusing, and it did OK.

Now that must be an admission of a scam. It may be that it did well and there is a suggestion in the article that some didn’t mind, but never-the-less, it seems it was set up purposefully to con people.

Then Becker recalls how the Ben Dover brand was already registered:

The first thing that I did was look at the copyright side of the brand and realized that Ben Dover’s logo was actually owned by some guy based in Manchester. So I phoned Lindsay up and said ‘Do you know this guy?’, he says ‘No’ and I say ‘Well legally he’s Ben Dover not you’. He says ‘Well don’t be ridiculous you know I’m Ben Dover, everyone knows who I am’. I said ‘I might know who you are but the logo has been registered by someone else and he’s asking for a million pounds to give it up’.

So Honey masqueraded as a character that was already copyrighted. No problem there then is there? It is quite OK to not check copyright on a copyright name and use it without compensating the owner.

He goes on to recall:

It eventually got taken to court. This guy had to prove he had been using the Ben Dover brand. He said he’d produced clothing and merchandise. I think just before the court case was about to commence he said ‘I’ll sell it for one hundred grand’. And we offered him, I think it was five grand – and that was our maximum. It wasn’t that he had any case it was just to stop this – the solicitor was two hundred pounds an hour! On the day of the court case he never turned up and said ‘Oh I’ve had a fire at my warehouse and all the evidence has been destroyed’. So he opted out with nothing

I’m not sure what is being said there, but the outcome proved to be very useful. I assume the reader is supposed to come up with their own opinion on it, and I’m sure they would.

Anyone who has been a recipient of a letter could raise a complaint to various persons / organisations such as:

Rate this:

After all the efforts of Golden Eye International Limited (“GEIL”) to “protect their copyright” by applying for disclosure from O2 for subscriber names in their Norwich Pharmacal Order (“NPO”), we get to the situation where GEIL leave those who deny their claim in limbo.

GEILs replies vary, but one constant in all replies remain the same. A sort of “GEIL are very nice people who follow rules and judgements and would never harm anybody or anything”.

That constant in their letter is:

We have followed the procedure laid down by the Court when corresponding with you.

For the results to be reliable, it is important to ensure that the monitoring software is functioning correctly. In particular, it is vital that the computer on which it is running has a correctly synchronised clock.

Who knows that? Who officially knows that? GEILs “forensic” expert says he “has identified the clock synchronisation source he used, which he says is accurate to 0.1 second”. Who officially saw that when they did the monitoring? We have to take their words for it.

Any more thoughts Justice Arnold?

Even if the monitoring software is functioning correctly, ISPs sometimes misidentify the subscriber to whom the IP address which has been detected was allocated at the relevant time. This can occur, for example, because of mistakes over time zones.

Maybe I am reading a different Court judgement than the one GEIL are saying they are following.

1) Hash of the content being uploaded by you, along with the content name, size and Torrent name. This will uniquely identify the file/movie that was being shared over P2P network.

2) Percentage of the file/movie that was being shared at the time of capture and detection of the infringement.

3) If you are seeding (or partially) more than one content, we have those identified by the ISP.

4) The P2P software, name and version, you were using and the hash that was generated by your software during that session of seeding or partial seeding.

5) The date and the time of seeding of any piece of the content by you with the index of the piece which shows where in the content that piece of data is. As we ask for just one identification by the ISP, this is a snapshot of this as it was happening. All of this could again be sent to the ISP to further identify you.

If we proceed to Court, we will be able to produce the following in digital format:

1) All the pieces seeded by you in a raw format that can then be inspected and further analysed.

2) The raw capture of the packets sent by your P2P software to the Internet at the time of identification. This is raw data that can be analysed further that will essentially show the piece of the content being seeded by you.

I don’t see this as following procedures laid down by the Court. The Court said that ISPs sometimes misidentify the subscriber. GEILs words are specific and accuse the subscriber as the infringer.

Not enough to convince? Let us look also at what Justice Arnold said:

Even if the monitoring software is functioning correctly and the ISP correctly identifies the subscriber to whom the IP address which has been detected was allocated at the relevant time, it does not necessarily follow that the subscriber was the person who was participating in the P2P filesharing which was detected.

Damn! It’s not looking good for GEILs evidence is it? Directly accusing the subscriber of infringing when the Court mentions very plausible issues as regards the monitoring, it escapes me. I’m beginning to think that Court judgments are not worth following any more. If you are sentenced to imprisonment in Court, ignore it and just be free and go home.

So let us use our imagination a bit and say that the monitoring software is perfect and the “Expert Witness” is clever and the ISP is useful. Let us believe in GEIL for one moment. They had 2,845 IP addresses that were monitored by Mr Torabi (Not NG3 Systems because they were crap for MediaCAT) for Ben Dover Productions (“BDP”). How many subscribers were disclosed by O2? Apparently less than 1,000! 33% hit rate! That’s it. I tried. I tried to believe in GEIL and it lasted for all of 3 seconds, which is less than the difference between the monitoring software timestamp and O2s timestamp (Ouch! Low blow!).

Let’s get back on to Court procedures and get back to the Court judgement and what Justice Arnold says:

I agree with counsel for Consumer Focus that the figure of £700 is unsupportable. My reasons are as follows. First, the Claimants know that an unknown percentage of the Intended Defendants are not infringers at all. Intended Defendants who have not in fact committed any infringements are not liable to pay any sum.

Let me re-align my reality sensors. How silly I was to try and imagine GEIL are right in their claim! I have to agree with Justice Arnold when he says “the Claimants know that an unknown percentage of the Intended Defendants are not infringers at all” and Justice Arnold is specific to say “Intended Defendants who have not in fact committed any infringements are not liable to pay any sum”.

But…..Justice Arnold says more:

Secondly, in the case of those Intended Defendants who are infringers, the Claimants have no idea about the scale of the infringements committed by each infringer. Some might have infringed on a very substantial scale indeed, while others might only have infringed to a minor extent.

Hmmm, I see. So why do GEIL ask for £350.00 per infringement? Oh yes, in the original draft letter GEIL asked for £700.00 per infringement. Why not £699.99? Why is £350.00 per infringement acceptable as a settlement based on the Justice Arnolds words?

I need more information Justice Arnold! Ah, he provided it:

I think that Mr Becker’s response in his second witness statement to the point made by counsel for Consumer Focus referred to in sub-paragraph 60(v) above is telling: “… it assumes that £700 will be successfully obtained from each of the 9000, when that is plainly wrong. In fact, it is likely that only a small proportion will result in a successfully obtained payment of any sum.”

Mr Beckers words are “it is likely that only a small proportion will result in a successfully obtained payment of any sum”. That is a telling statement. What did Justice Arnold say to that?

This comes quite close to an admission that the figure of £700 has been selected so as to maximise the revenue obtained from the letters of claim, rather than as a realistic estimate of the damages recoverable by the relevant Claimant from each Intended Defendant

Mr Becker, please! Justice Arnold seems to have figured that an awful statement to make! Whatever actions are taken after the judgement, Mr Becker has been shown by Justice Arnold what could be considered a charlatan.

So Justice Arnold says £700.00 is unrealistic and GEIL think £350.00 is realistic. I think Justice Arnolds words “the Claimants have no idea about the scale of the infringements committed by each infringer” gives an excellent clue to what the suggested settlement should be from GEIL. They have the “Evidence” of one download from the alleged infringer and that is the only “Evidence”. That is the value of one video.

Having accepted before Justice Arnolds words that innocent subscribers will be targeted, it is fair to say that the monitoring software will capture those who did infringe GEILs copyright. In this situation, a subscriber will accept GEILs claim and what happens then Justice Arnold?

Accordingly, I do not consider that the Claimants are justified in sending letters of claim to every Intended Defendant demanding the payment of £700. What the Claimants ought to do is to proceed in the conventional manner, that is to say, to require the Intended Defendants who do not dispute liability to disclose such information as they are able to provide as to the extent to which they have engaged in P2P filesharing of the relevant Claimants’ copyright works. In my view it would be acceptable for the Claimants to indicate that they are prepared to accept a lump sum in settlement of their claims, including the request for disclosure, but not to specify a figure in the initial letter. The settlement sum should be individually negotiated with each Intended Defendant.

Before I start to lose faith in the Courts and justice, I will quote one last statement from Justice Arnold:

I conclude that the Claimants’ interests in enforcing their copyrights outweigh the Intended Defendants’ interest in protecting their privacy and data protection rights, and thus it is proportionate to order disclosure, provided that the order and the proposed letter of claim are framed so as properly to safeguard the legitimate interests of the Intended Defendants, and in particular the interests of Intended Defendants who have not in fact committed the infringements in question.

The most important two words in that paragraph are “the order”. That says it is an Order to GEIL as well as the intended defendants. The “proposed letter” was drafted and approved by Court, and any subsequent actions taken by GEIL after the proposed letter are governed by the judgement of the Court.

I will re-write that paragraph which would be more appropriate for GEIL:

I wish we would have followed the procedure laid down by the Court when corresponding with you.

Golden Eye International Limited (“GEIL”), of which Julian Becker is a Director (Cartoon picture), are now sending out letters to people they accuse of infringing copyright even though the recipients denied their claim. A classic “Not listening to anything you have to say”

From the copy of the letters we have seen; let’s look at what they say:

Approval

GEILs starts with;

The letter we sent you on <some date> has been approved by Mr Justice Arnold, after input from both Telefonica’s (O2/BE) legal representatives and Consumer Focus and Open Rights Group on behalf of consumers.

Your name and address have been disclosed by Telefonica (O2/BE) as being assigned to the IP address referred to in our earlier letter, at the date and time when the infringement too place.

So GEIL associate their Court approved letter and its content with this this letter they have created themselves? The problem with that is Justice Arnold stated in paragraph 125 from the NPO judgement;

Secondly, the draft letter does not make it clear that the fact that an order for disclosure has been made does not mean that the court has considered the merits of allegation of infringement against the Intended Defendant.

So everything else GEIL say in their response letter should reflect those words.

GEILs own words say the subscriber details were assigned to an IP address. This is a fact because somebody has to be named at an address to pay the Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) bill. To me GEIL are acknowledging this fact and would be aware that the subscriber is not the infringer.

And at the NPO judgement, Consumer Focus was representing the intended defendants because O2 didn’t have legal representation to defend their customers. Quite clearly Consumer Focus provided a monumental effort to not allow GEIL to send their original template letter. The Open Rights Group (“ORG”) were NOT part of the original NPO hearing and O2/BE had no representatives. So basically GEIL are being disingenuous here.

Template Response

GEILs letter goes on;

You have responded to our letter with a standard response from the internet. In addition to the evidence we have, we would also present to the Court, if necessary, that your communication copied and pasted from the type of sites that offer these responses is further proof of your infringement using the P2P networks.

Now GEIL are dismissing Letter of Denial (“LoD”) responses from O2 subscribers because he says it is a template!

Notwithstanding the fact that GEIL have no evidence that the subscriber is the infringer as they insist, they now make assertions that using a template response is further proof of the infringement! I call it clutching at straws.

I hope this will finally disprove those rumors that associate us with Andrew Crossley, although my mother was disappointed it has been proved that I am indeed a pornographer not a solicitor.

And I am guessing that his work puts him in easier access to Lawyers to call on at will but scared, innocent, confused and limited means O2 subscribers are not allowed help according to him.

Anyone using the “Speculative Invoicing Handbook – Second Edition” gets a full and concise explanation of an area of expertise and law that even High Court Judges have trouble understanding, as do Members of Parliament and others.

So by GEILs logic, would it be incorrect for an O2 subscriber to go to a Solicitor and gain legal advice and have the Solicitor draft up a letter? Would that also be seen as proof of infringement because no effort was made to draft the letter alone?

And what about the “type of sites” part? What type of sites? Is this guilt by association? So I assume this very blog is promoting copyright infringement from GEILs perspective. Or maybe http://beingthreatened.yolasite.com/ is packed with torrent downloads from GEILs perspective also?

No, the fact is that this blog and http://beingthreatened.yolasite.com/ are helping vulnerable people who have been accused of something they haven’t done simply because they are O2 subscribers.

Maybe GEIL should look at their “type of site” which contains some questionable content:

Clem Vogler, a Chartered Physicist who is registered as a computer expert with the Expert Witness Directory, has written a detailed report of our software.

And surely an “Expert Witness” who has to write a “detailed report” to be used in the High Court would perform a rigorous test of software that is going to be used to obtain IP addresses from a P2P network? Well, from the NPO again:

The tests were carried out in October and November 2009. Mr Vogler explains he did not have Xtrack installed on his computer, and did not concern himself with how it worked, but treated it as a “black box”. He simply presented it with inputs, namely his test files, and examined the outputs to see if they corresponded to his inputs. He was satisfied that they did correspond.

“Mr Vogler explains he did not have Xtrack installed on his computer, and did not concern himself with how it worked”. Some statements are worth commenting on but any “Expert Witness” making this statement in the High Court, well, it speaks for itself.

We use the latest technology to identify those IP addresses from which our films and content are being uploaded to peer-to-peer networks and through rigorous and legal means contact the offenders notifying them of our intent to get them to cease any similar activities in the future as well as negotiate an equitable settlement for the losses caused by their unlawful practises.

So publically saying that IP addresses represents “the offenders”. Which Court said that? Which Judge said that? What Court case said that? Indeed Judge Birss at the case that ended the ACS:LAW debacle, stated that ACS:LAWs client Media C.A.T “do not know who did it and know that they do not know who did it” (Section 28)

Court Decision

GEILs letter goes on;

In the absence of a defence from you relating specifically to the infringement to which we are referring, we consider it likely that the Court would, on the balance of probabilities, come to the conclusion that it is you who has carried out the infringement to which we refer.

In the absence of real evidence from GEIL, and they have already implied the subscriber is assigned to an IP address and not the infringer earlier in their letter, the Court on the balance of probabilities may very well come to the conclusion that the defendant did not infringe copyright.

Thirdly, the draft letter asserts under the heading “Infringing Acts” that the Intended Defendant is liable for infringement. Although the last paragraph under that heading implicitly acknowledges the possibility that the Intended Defendant may not be the person who was responsible for the infringing acts, this acknowledgement is not sufficiently explicit. Furthermore, the reference under the heading “Proposed Settlement” to “inaction, by permitting a third party to use your internet connection” undermines the effect of the implicit acknowledgement. As HHJ Birss QC has explained, nothing less than authorisation suffices for infringement, at least in the context of a claim for damages.

Fourthly, the second paragraph under the heading “Legal Consequences” is too one-sided in that it sets out the consequences to the Intended Defendant of a successful claim without acknowledging the consequences to the relevant Claimant of an unsuccessful one.

Justice Arnold said the above in relation to the original LoC GEIL wanted to send. So HHJ Birss QC says “nothing less than authorisation suffices for infringement, at least in the context of a claim for damages” and the “Legal Consequences” is too one-sided. The statement from GEIL again does not set out evidence of authorisation and again is too one sided.

Technical Evidence

GEILs letter goes on;

The evidence we have shows the following:

1) Hash of the content being uploaded by you, along with the content name, size and Torrent name. This will uniquely identify the file/movie that was being shared over P2P network.

2) Percentage of the file/movie that was being shared at the time of capture and detection of the infringement.

3) If you are seeding (or partially) more than one content, we have those identified by the ISP.

4) The P2P software, name and version, you were using and the hash that was generated by your software during that session of seeding or partial seeding.

5) The date and the time of seeding of any piece of the content by you with the index of the piece which shows where in the content that piece of data is. As we ask for just one identification by the ISP, this is a snapshot of this as it was happening. All of this could again be sent to the ISP to further identify you.

If we proceed to Court, we will be able to produce the following in digital format:

1) All the pieces seeded by you in a raw format that can then be inspected and further analysed.

2) The raw capture of the packets sent by your P2P software to the Internet at the time of identification. This is raw data that can be analysed further that will essentially show the piece of the content being seeded by you.

That is a lot of technical blurb clearly set out to purposely confuse the subscriber. What it is really is information that was captured from an IP address not an individual person.

It is also a clear assertion from GEIL where they say the subscriber is guilty of the infringement. “being uploaded by you”, “If you are seeding”, “you were using”, “further identify you” etc.

So we see that there is no “phishing” exercise here. GEIL are directly accusing the subscriber which is also apparent from his statement at the NPO hearing:

the Claimants sought disclosure by O2 of the names and addresses of the subscribers associated with the IP addresses shown in the CD-ROM attached as Exhibit 1, that the Claimants believed that those IP addresses had been used by the subscribers to make available copyright material for P2P copying

As regards Richard Clayton’s evidence that the software we use is capable of identifying the correct IP Address but this is not the case every time, I have to listen to my technical advisors who assure me that in the vast majority of the time, the software will identify the correct IP address that has infringed our copyright. The fact that the order was granted implies to me that the judge shared our opinion on this.

“my technical advisors who assure me that in the vast majority of the time, the software will identify the correct IP address that has infringed our copyright”. Hmmm…..Two things of interest there. Firstly, “vast majority of the time” is NOT “all of the time”. Secondly, “the correct IP address that has infringed our copyright” is acknowledging that it is an IP address and not the subscriber.

Further Details

GEILs letter goes on;

If you would like to view more details regarding the evidence relating to your specific case then please log onto <some “type of site”> , entering the Case Reference <ref> and the Access Code <code>. You will find here the information you have requested, together with the statements of Mr Torabi (Golden Eye’s expert) and that of Mr Vogler, who was the independent expert. The evidence of both Mr Torabi and Mr Vogler was accepted by the High Court when we made our application against Telefonica.

Who would want to log in to GEILs website? Who? Who knows if they use this against someone in a follow up letter saying they have another IP address and this proves again that they are the infringer.

In light of the above, we suggest you reconsider your position and if necessary seek professional legal advice. We look forward to hearing from you either by email <some “type of email”> or to our office at <some office where you dial premium rate numbers>, quoting your reference number <ref>.

Yours faithfully

<some signature who is not a person>

In light of being very much less than straightforward, dismissing a perfectly good legal response, a direct accusation of the subscriber being the infringer and an attempt to get the subscriber to log in to one of those “type of sites”, GEIL suggests the subscriber to reconsider their position (Back to the SRA Report, Andrew Crossley stated the LoC’s were “…to try and entice people to settle with us, because that is the object of the exercise to avoid litigation”).

The only part of this letter that actually gives good information is to seek legal advice (And that was Court Ordered)

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t reconsider my position if I received this letter!

But wait………what is this that accompanies the letter…………another letter!!!

Ah, “Without Prejudice”. That’s interesting. So effectively this letter they are offering some form of settlement for which it cannot be tendered as evidence in Court. See Wikipedia Article paragraph:

The term “without prejudice” is used in the course of negotiations to settle a lawsuit. It indicates that a particular conversation or letter cannot be tendered as evidence in court.

Settlement

GEILs letter goes on;

We would be happy to settle this matter with you at this stage and would ask for <Some disproportionate amount> from you together with the undertakings and details of where to send payment.

Hmmmm……..I’m beginning to think that “Golden Eye” is actually the “All Seeing Eye”. In the first letter they are making the assertion that the subscriber is the infringer and then ask the subscriber to reconsider their position. In the second letter it seems they have anticipated the subscribers response and requested a settlement figure! Amazing! If they are really struggling because no one buys their material, with foresight like that they could pick six numbers and win the lottery! And guess the bonus ball whilst they are at it!

Fundamentally we are pursuing those that are uploading not downloading, they are potentially uploading to millions of others who are also using these networks. How many they upload to is impossible to calculate, but in effect these violations are unauthorized distribution, we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film.

That is interesting. The letter I seen was for one download. And apparently it is “impossible to calculate” how many “they upload to” but it is not impossible to calculate a settlement figure!

Conclusion

GEILs finishes with;;

If this is acceptable to you, we will send you an agreement to sign together with the undertakings and details of where to send payment.

Please respond in writing to either our office at <some office where you dial premium rate numbers>, or by e-mail to <some “type of email”> quoting your reference number <ref>.

Yours faithfully

<some signature who is not a person>

So sending the first letter to a subscriber asking them to reconsider their position simply because the subscriber denied their claim, then accompanying that letter with another letter proposing a disproportionate settlement figure on the basis that the subscriber has admitted the infringement could be considered injudicious.

The settlement sums demanded were not based on any or any genuine assessment of the damages and costs for which recipients were liable. In interview with the IO on 16 February 2010, the Respondent had stated:-

“…actually I decided to take a more broad brush approach to this now and simply said “our client is prepared to compromise his claim in receipt of £540 or £495” whatever the figure is going to be, and that’s what it is and we believe the damages would be more in court, as simple as that. I don’t think we need to quantify how the compromise amount has been arrived at other than to say it’s the amount our client is prepared to settle at to avoid a claim.”

And a reminder of what happened to Andrew Jonathan Crossley, paragraph 109:

Statement of Full Order

The Tribunal Ordered that the Respondent, Andrew Jonathan Crossley, solicitor, be suspended from practice as a solicitor for the period of two years to commence on the 16th day of January 2012 and it further Ordered that he do pay the costs of and incidental to this application and enquiry fixed in the agreed sum of £76,326.55.

If the SDT judgement is that such practices warranted Andrew Jonathan Crossley being suspended for 2 years, then such practices must be considered unacceptable.

Anyone who has been a recipient of such a settlement letter could raise a complaint to various persons / organisation such as:

In a repeat of last Decembers warning letters in anticipation of Golden Eye International Limited (“GEIL”) Letter Of Claim (“LoC”) of copyright infringement on behalf of Ben Dover Productions (“BDP”), O2/BE There have started to send out the same warning letter to their customers in what can only be in anticipation of further LoCs from GEIL on behalf of the other 12 producers.

GEIL successfully gained disclosure of O2/BE There subscriber details (Which was un-opposed by O2) from their Norwich Pharmacal Order (“NPO”) application in March 2012 for BDP, but were unsuccessful with the other 12 producers. They subsequently won their appeal for the 12 producers in December 2012.

For the new recipients of these imminent LoCs, many will be completely unaware of what is effectively a “phishing” campaign by GEIL. This is because GEIL have only the evidence of a “monitored” IP address and with this they “bought” the subscriber details from O2/BE There. The letter under “Infringing acts” starts:

This letter assumes that you, as the internet account holder at your address, were the user of the relevant computer on the day and time in question

After making such a statement, the letter goes on to say:

In the event that you were not responsible for the infringing acts outlined above because, for example, another member of your household was the user of the computer, you should make full disclosure to us of the other parties at your residence using your internet connection to make the Work available for download

So they assume the subscriber is the infringer then say they may not be responsible, to which they say:

A failure to make such disclosure may lead to a claim being made against you with the court being asked to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that you were the user of the computer

A completely innocent subscriber who has not committed the infringement, and not authorised anyone else to commit the infringement may receive a follow up letter demanding a disproportionate settlement simply because they respond with details of who also lives at their address.

The subscribers who will receive the latest letters GEIL are sending out can see from the NPO judgement that Judge Arnold said:

Furthermore, it will expose them to receiving letters of claim and may expose them to proceedings for infringement in circumstances where they may not be guilty of infringement, where the subject matter of the claim may cause them embarrassment, where a proper defence to the claim would require specialised legal advice that they may not be able to afford and where they may not consider it cost-effective for them to defend the claim even if they are innocent

This is the Judge who presided over GEILs NPO application, and this Judge knows innocent people will be targeted.

The Judge goes on to say:

What the Claimants ought to do is to proceed in the conventional manner, that is to say, to require the Intended Defendants who do not dispute liability to disclose such information as they are able to provide as to the extent to which they have engaged in P2P filesharing of the relevant Claimants’ copyright works

So from the words of the Judge, those “who do not dispute liability” are “to disclose such information as they are able to provide”. The Judge does not say that those who do dispute liability should disclose such information.

The man who has perpetrated this phishing campaign is Mr Julian Becker who is a director of GEIL along with Ben Dover (a.k.a. Mr Simon Lindsay James Honey). Mr Becker has been known to make rather odd quotes to the Adult Media Press, such as:

Fundamentally we are pursuing those that are uploading not downloading, they are potentially uploading to millions of others who are also using these networks. How many they upload to is impossible to calculate, but in effect these violations are unauthorized distribution, we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film.

Now the words there are totally misleading and could lead a subscriber who is innocent or guilty in to a false sense of assurance. “pursuing those that are uploading not downloading” is completely irrelevant because the nature of BitTorrent software IS downloading and uploading. And as I have found out, GEILs response to those who admitted one infringement is a demand of £350.00 which contradicts his statement of “we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film”.

For those who have received the warning letter from O2/BE There and may receive an LoC from GEIL, what can you do?

As is always the advice:

BE CALM, DO NOT PANIC and DO NOT IGNORE.

The Citizens Advice Bureau (“CAB”) would be one of the first ports of call, they can be contacted on 08454 04 05 06, their website at adviceguide.org.uk or you can attend your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

Without doubt the whole “Speculative Invoicing” operation employed by various participants with various roles has proven to be flawed and has targeted innocent people. That is proof alone that there has been no justification in operating such a scheme, even if infringers are caught.

Sadly, I know of certain people involved in the GEIL operation who have stated that “Collateral Damage” is acceptable if it catches the infringers. I take this to mean that no matter how many innocent people are targeted and pay up through fear, this “Justifies” their actions if they catch infringers.

As regards GEILs Letter Of Claim (“LoC”), the one small problem in what happened to be an excellent outcome of their original LoC being neutered is there is no initial settlement figure, and thus the real threat of the LoC is dumbed down. That could be a problem because an infringer (Or an infringer who seeks legal guidance) may see a figure of compensation far differently than GEIL.

It now transpires that unsuspecting subscribers who admitted the infringement have immediately received another letter from GEIL demanding a settlement figure which is more close to their original LoC and completely ignores everything that was decided by the Judge in GEILs original Norwich Pharmacal Order (“NPO”) back in March 2012. I suppose GEIL are not going to let a decision from an “unimportant” High Court Judgedissuade them from carrying on their absurd claims!

So what can a subscriber who has been led in to admission of guilt take from it? And what can they do when they receive the unjustified claim of compensation from GEIL?

If the alleged infringer admits GEILs claim then I believe clarification must be given to what extent. Admission could be:

1. An actual download took place by accident and cancelled quickly.

2. An actual download took place by accident and cancelled eventually.

3. An actual download took place in completion in anything from X hours to X days and removed by the infringer from the p2p software.

4. An actual download took place in completion in anything from X hours to X days and not removed by the infringer from the p2p software.

What about the infringement? It may be accepted that “Two acts” of infringements occurred:

1. The alleged infringer has admitted to downloading the copyright material.

2. The alleged infringer has made the copyright material available for GEIL to download a small part.

What is in dispute is GEILs value of compensation of a demand for £350.00 per infringement or £700.00 for four infringements.

The act of file sharing the Work without the consent of GEIL or BDP has caused damage to our business. We contend that every copy of the Work that is downloaded represents a potential lost sale. Whenever the Work is made available for download to other parties there is the opportunity for multiple downloads to take place resulting in lost revenue. In addition to GEIL selling direct, we also enter into licensing agreements for third party organisations to distribute our content. File sharing also results in lost royalty revenue and weakening of the Ben Dover brand. The court has power in such circumstances to award GEIL and BDP damages for our loss and, in appropriate circumstances, additional damages where the unlawful file sharing has been flagrant

The level of damages we claim will depend on the extent to which you have downloaded the Work and/or made it available for the download by others.

Now the decision from the Judge Mr Justice Arnold in the Court case:

134. Secondly, in the case of those Intended Defendants who are infringers, the Claimants have no idea about the scale of the infringements committed by each infringer. Some might have infringed on a very substantial scale indeed, while others might only have infringed to a minor extent.

Now I will look at particular aspects of GEILs evidence, claim, proposed settlement and their claim of legal consequences.

Evidence

The single most important fact is GEILs evidence has a small part of an upload from an IP address. This is very evident from GEILs claim of “Whenever the Work is made available for download to other parties there is the opportunity for multiple downloads to take place resulting in lost revenue”. This is backed up by the Judge when he states “the Claimants have no idea about the scale of the infringements committed by each infringer”.

So making a claim of “the opportunity for multiple downloads” when the Judge quite rightly says that they have no idea how much, is where GEIL have the major problem of lack of evidence. GEIL have the evidence of one upload.

Lost Revenue

What about GEILs claim of lost revenue? Surely lost revenue must be taken in to account after all relevant costs are taken out for sending a DVD to a consumer. Compiling a DVD and packaging costs need to be considered, then the sale value to a distributor and finally the postage costs to post it to a distributor.

After all this is taken in to consideration, even a 30% gross profit on the £30.00 sale of a DVD to a distributor is £9.00 profit.

This is also on the basis that you can actually buy the film if it is at all available through Distribution. It cannot be deemed lost revenue if the film is not available to purchase.

Disproportionate

Although it is the case the Judge declared GEIL have the right to protect their copyright, it is certainly not right for GEIL to claim disproportionate compensation. If GEILs claim to an alleged infringer is lost revenue through sharing and uploading, making the same claim against other alleged infringers is double-counting.

If 10 alleged infringers were asked to pay compensation, each alleged infringer would be asked to pay for the infringement of the others. This would in the case of the 10 alleged infringers make them pay for a total of 90 infringements.

Legal Consequences

From the Judgment, Mr Becker makes reference to “the reasonable royalty should be assessed on the basis of a ‘time limited license [sic] to exploit a work by providing copies of it on an unlimited worldwide basis’ “, whilst the LoC claims “In addition to GEIL selling direct, we also enter into licensing agreements for third party organisations to distribute our content. File sharing also results in lost royalty revenue and weakening of the Ben Dover brand”.

It now transpires that GEIL are making the claim that the Court will grant their claim for a “One year” standard licence agreement for one film which they would typically grant for Distributors. This could be as much (If not more) as £1,500.00. Exactly how they can equate sharing one film to a one year licence is baffling! It can only be considered the basis of a licence for as long as the download took place. If it took two days to download the film by the infringer, it can only be a licence for that amount of time, which would be no more than £10.00.

It may be argued by GEIL that they would only ever negotiate the minimum term of a licence to be one year, but negotiation is precisely the point when it comes to an agreement for a licence. It cannot be one way. A Distributor can make the decision if they wish to agree to those terms or not.

It also has to be taken in to consideration that you have the disproportionate situation (Above) of infringers having to pay for all other infringements resulting in double-counting again.

Flagrancy

The particular claim of flagrancy in GEILs LoC relates to their claim that an infringement has damaged the Ben Dover Productions (“BDP”) brand. I will set aside the notion that this is a possibility as it could be argued that is what GEIL are doing. This claim fails again through the evidence situation (Above). To what level can GEIL claim an infringer has damaged the BDP brand? Again no evidence to back up such claim.

Summary

My summary of GEIL and their latest claim against those who admitted the infringement are:

1. To what level of infringement has GEIL established from the infringer?

2. What evidence does GEIL have to prove an infringers level of infringement?

3. Why do GEIL quite directly ignore the Judges opinion?

4. Do GEIL consider the profit only aspect of lost revenue?

5. How can GEIL consider the idea of multiple uploads, licencing and flagrancy when it results in double-counting?

6. How can GEIL impose the one year licence on an infringer without negotiation when a download may take up to two days?

Disregarding the fact that our films when purchased sell for far in excess of £10, he totally missed the fact that file sharing occurs not in a closed user group of those circa 9,000 Telefonica customers, but in a far larger community of millions of users. Fundamentally we are pursuing those that are uploading not downloading, they are potentially uploading to millions of others who are also using these networks. How many they upload to is impossible to calculate, but in effect these violations are unauthorized distribution, we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film.